T he S E V E N A G E S O F M A N: A
series of drawings by Jonathan Waller
McCulloch, L; Murray, B; Searle, C. and Calland, R
Published PDF deposited in Coventry University repository
Original citation:
McCulloch, L; Murray, B; Searle, C. and Calland, R. (2016) T he S E V E N A G E S O F M A N:
A series of drawings by Jonathan Waller. Lanchester Gallery, Coventry University.
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xx
Jonathan Waller
n
Photograph by Bill Jackson
In Act ii Scene vii of
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S AS YOU LIKE IT
the melancholy Jaques delivers his famous
monologue in which he catalogues the
seven stages of a man’s life
T he
SEVEN AGES OF MAN
A series of drawings by
Jonathan Waller
n
Artist’s
Exhibition Catalogue
With
contexualising essays by
Lynsey McCulloch
Bev Murray & Clari Searle
Ruth Calland
n
Frontispiece
THE ARTIST JONATHAN WALLER
in his studio
Frontispiece
mmxvi
CONTENTS
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Catalogue Copyright © Lanchester Gallery
Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Coventry University 2016
PREFACE
[vi]
n
Essays
Shakespeare’s Seven Ages
Lynsey McCulloch
[1]
The SEVEN Ages of Man:
a timeless story of what it is
to be human
Bev Murray & Clari Searle
[4]
A Cast of Eternal Archetypes
from the Theatre of
Our Inner World
Ruth Calland
[8]
Images Copyright © Jonathan Waller 2016
Texts Copyright © the respective author(s)
Lynsey McCulloch
Bev Murry & Carli Searle
Ruth Calland
2016
ISBN 10 digit: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
ISBN 13 digit: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Date of publication 2016
n
Colour Plates
THE SEVEN AGES OF MAN
Jonathan Waller
I – VII
Published by
[logo]
[iv]
[v]
Shakespeare’s Seven Ages
by
Lynsey McCulloch
PREFACE
A n d A c k n o w l e d g e m e n t s T
o commemorate the 400th anniversary of William
Shakespeare’s death, Holy Trinity Church, Stratfordupon-Avon, commissioned me to produce works of
art on the theme of ‘The Seven Ages of Man’ (the
pictures illustrated and discussed in this publication) to hang in the
church’s aisle during the international celebrations of 2016. They
offer a reinterpretation of that famous speech from the bard’s play
As You Like It. Shakespeare was baptised and buried in the church
which over a quarter of a million people visit each year. There are
a number of people to whom I must extend my gratitute for helping me stage the exhibition.
¶ First of all there are Marion Homer and Mike Warrillow for comissioning the pictures and particularly the Reverend Patrick
Taylor, Vicar of Holy Trinity, for his support and faith in me
during their production. Secondly, I really must thank the essayists:
Ruth Calland, Dr Lynsey McCulloch, Bev Murray and Clari Searle for their expertise, enthusiasm and insight. They all
embraced the subject with warm generosity. Acknowledgement
is due to Coventry University for help with funding: in particular I’m grateful to Professor Juliet Simpson and Dr Andrea Hannon for their guidance. Framing the work was no mean feat
so I’m indebted to Avtar Bahra of Pictorum Gallery, Walthamstow, for accomplishing this so expertly. Many thanks go to
designer Clive Richards and his associate Malcolm Waterhouse at Magenta Advertising for producing this catalogue so beautifully, and to the photographers: Bill Jackson, Victoria Billham, Carys Fyson and Alice Turrell – all of whom exercised great
skill and professionalism. ‘… men are April when they woo, December when they
wed. Maids are May when they are maids, but the sky
changes when they are wives.’ As You Like It (4.1.137–9)
S
hakespeare’s Jaques is, in his own words, a man who ‘can
suck melancholy out of a song as a weasel sucks eggs’
(2.5.10-11). His ‘Seven Ages of Man’ speech in As You Like
It – the subject of Jonathan Waller’s exhibition at Holy
Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon – is often read as a rather
despondent meditation on the temporality of life and the finality
of death. The speech’s seven ages are the inevitable stages of life,
from infanthood to decrepitude, culminating in ‘mere oblivion’
(2.7.166) and the loss of all sensual apprehension. Shakespeare
carefully delineates between the seven ages. He catalogues the
pressures attached to each generational shift – the young boy
dreading school or the soldier seeking conflict – but rarely charts
the pleasures associated with these stages of life. Even the lover is
doleful, full of sighs.
¶ And finally, my most heartfelt gratitude has to go to the Fleming family for their generous financial assistance, without which this publication could not have been realised. Jonathan Waller, London, 2016
¶ But the speech need not be read as an exercise in melancholy.
Not only does the speech’s emphasis on performativity – ‘all the
men and women merely players’ (2.7.141) – offer us the freedom
to play our own parts and affect our own futures, however set the
stages of life may be, but Jaques’s account of the inevitability of
death has a levelling affect. Yes, we are food for worms but we
are all food for worms. Jonathan Waller’s inclusion of diverse
subjects within his series of paintings – diverse in terms of gender,
nationality, ethnicity and status – successfully widens the reach
of Shakespeare’s speech and perhaps points to a narrowness of
vision within As You Like It. Despite the speech’s early description
of men and women as merely players, Shakespeare’s subsequent
seven ages of man are exactly that – an account of one man’s life
from cradle to grave. The man is presumably English, although
the action of the play is set in France, and his fifth age as a justice
suggests a decent, if not necessarily spectacular, social status. And
[vi]
[1]
D r L y n s e y M c C u l l o c h is
Senior Lecturer in English
Literature at Coventry University.
Widely published in early modern
studies, she is currently editing with
Brandon Shaw The Oxford Handbook
of Shakespeare and Dance.
References
The Arden Shakespeare: As You Like It
Edited by Juliet Dusinberre
London: Arden, 2006
isbn: ???????
yet Shakespeare’s employment of the memento mori tradition, a
medieval reflection of the transience of life and the indiscriminate
nature of death, succeeds in expanding the speech’s range. Death
welcomes all. Waller’s inclusivity matches Shakespeare’s own but
crucially updates it. Despite the potential for melancholy, even
morbidity, both artists succeed in democratizing the cycle of life.
¶ I’d also suggest that the speech reflects the play’s wider interest
in seasonality and the life cycle as the determinants of wellness.
The division of life into several ages has a long history. Shakespeare’s seven ages was no doubt influenced by medieval tradition
but the number of stages was variable. Aristotle favoured three.
Ovid four. Hesiod five. Ovid significantly likened the four ages
to the four seasons, and their shared cyclicality remained commonplace, even when the numbers of ages varied. In As You Like
It, Rosalind in her disguise as Ganymede teases the lovelorn but
potentially fickle Orlando, suggesting that men are ‘April when
they woo, December when they wed’ (4.1.137-8). In other words,
they fall in love during the prime of life but, by the time they
marry, that romantic energy has inevitably waned. Women too
‘age’ during courtship. The disappointment of fading love and
the disaffection that comes with age may recall once again the
melancholy of Jaques’s speech. But Rosalind is testing Orlando
with tales of inconstancy; ultimately, he passes her test and he
remains loyal. The loneliness associated with age is deflected, not
only by the play’s celebration of love, but by a visual postscript to
Jaques’s speech. The separation of the life cycle into stages necessitates distinct ages. In Shakespeare’s version, the subject is – at
each stage – alone and interaction between generations is entirely
absent. But the speech is immediately followed by the arrival of
Orlando at the pastoral court of Duke Senior bearing his ailing
and aged servant Adam. The isolation of Jaques’s seven ages is
instantly undercut by this image of youth and age working together. Jonathan Waller’s painting of the seventh age – depicting
an elderly man with a new-born baby – does the same, while also
reflecting on the cyclicality of Shakespeare’s vision.
of Arcadian invariability and Jaques’s depiction of linear time,
perpetual change and death’s certainty. Duke Senior, employing
Christian rather than classical thinking to extol the Forest’s timelessness, likens Arden to the Garden of Eden:
Here feel we not the penalty of Adam,
The seasons’ difference – as the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter’s wind,
Which when it bites and blows upon my body
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say:
‘This is no flattery. These are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.’ (2.1.5–11)
¶ Time is a feature of the fallen world, as the seasons are the
penalty of the mythical Silver Age. Duke Senior, having found his
paradise on earth, no longer feels the ‘seasons’ difference’. Or does
he? The Duke admits here to shrinking with cold at the onset of
winter. It’s not that he doesn’t feel, or notice, the ‘seasons’ difference’ but rather that he no longer minds it. Rough weather does
not flatter or fawn, as the Duke’s courtiers once did. It is entirely
honest. It deals in feeling and physical sensation. It reminds you
of your humanity, and your mortality. And, in this context, such
a reminder is welcome. As is Adam’s ultimate penalty – the requirement to work, or labour. This is a play in which the pastoral
ideal sits alongside the working countryside. Rosalind and Celia,
after arriving in the Forest of Arden, purchase a sheep farm. The
uprooted court learns the lessons of honest labour, the seasons’
difference and the deep equality that accompanies the life cycle.
¶ Jonathan Waller’s new series of seven paintings offer visitors to
Holy Trinity Church a fascinating meditation on Shakespeare’s
most intriguing speech.
n
¶ The play’s rural setting accentuates this interest in seasonality.
The Forest recalls the mythical Golden Age, what one might call
the ‘first’ age of man but one significantly not subject to change
or the passing of time. As Orlando remarks, ‘There’s no clock in
the forest’ (3.2.293). The Golden Age is instead characterised by
perpetual spring. And yet the play vacillates between this vision
[2]
[3]
¶ Waller has chosen his Ages with a consideration of our twentyfirst century global context, as he follows Shakespeare’s contention
‘All the world’s a stage.’ He shows us this through Ages considered
from other continents, mirroring the human condition crossculturally, and still yet many of the painted protagonists could
belong to any and every culture. This interpretation is rather
different from Robert Smirk’s ethnocentrically English paintings
on the ‘Seven Ages’ painted between 1798–1801.
The SEVEN Ages of Man:
a timeless story of what it is
to be human
by
Bev Murray and Clari Searle
T
he telling of stories, the very creation of them, helps
us make ourselves and make our world. At every level,
they’re a product of the tension between the social and
the psychological, and ultimately the stories that last
are the ones that epitomise that tension, striking at the heart of
what makes us human. Shakespeare’s ‘The Seven Ages of Man’
is one of these stories.
¶ The ideas in the ‘Seven Ages’ are as relevant today as when
first penned in 1599. The story illustrates human progression to
maturity through experiences that remain equivalent to those of
the modern day – despite apparent differences in life expectancy
and in social development. In Shakespeare’s play As You Like It,
the character Jaques relates this tale with his usual despondency.
He outlines the miserable human condition as he sees it from the
infant ‘mewling and puking,’ to the ‘whining’ schoolboy ‘creeping
like snail’ to school until the last scene, the culmination of ageing
ending in a finality that is ‘sans everything.’ Yet our reading of
Jonathan Waller’s painting series is a celebration of these stages
of life, concluding in a hopeful rendering of the last stage as a
dying man holds a baby in his arms – and so life is renewed and
continues.
B e v M u r r a y is the founder of
‘Stories to be.’ She is also a writer,
business psychologist and a coach,
who loves stories and working with
people to find their own.
C l a r i S e a r l e teaches
linguistics at Coventry University
and is currently working on a PhD
in Comics Stylistics. She also likes
to experiment with oil painting and
all things visual.
¶ Waller’s paintings encourage the viewer to experience the ‘Seven
Ages’ in new ways, his images drawing on modern-day social
mores. The ‘mewling and puking’ baby is no longer ‘in the nurse’s
arms’, but in the arms of its mother, as she pulls him into life from
the bottom of the birthing pool. This is a modern birth with the
support of modern medicine, and displays the vigour of mothers
who continue to heroically haul their children into the world and
provide the primary care even in the twenty-first century.
¶ The ‘school boy’ has morphed into an Asian girl, who struggles
with high expectations for education. It is easy to imagine how
she too may go ‘unwillingly’ as ‘snail’ to school, only perhaps this
new interpretation is beyond just a school child’s resistance and a
desire for freedom and play. In 2014, the BBC reported on suicide
in Japan, identifying it as the most common cause of death in
children of 10–19 years old. They cited these words from a school
girl under the pseudonym ‘Masa’: My school uniform felt so heavy as
if I was in armour…I thought about killing myself, because that would have
been easier (bbc 31 August 2015)
¶ There are, of course, stories within this storyline, narratives
that can be told at each of the ‘Seven Ages’. Engaging with each
image conjures up a wealth of possibility and meaning. There is
also intrigue in exploring the gaps between the stories, and finding
other narratives in those gaps. How does the soldier become the
judge? And the judge become the pantaloon? You can get lost in
the gaps, and in the getting lost begin to find another story. This
wealth of possibility and meaning needs to be explored by each
individual viewer in relation to their own life, and here we offer
our own thoughts on this exciting new interpretation of Shakespeare’s ‘The Seven Ages of Man’.
¶ Next, we have the lovers, which are drawn from a Bollywood
movie, exploring the idea of arranged marriage, of the disparate
power and tension between the two parties. Yet, there is also a
sense here of romance, of what is desired from a love match, as
they embrace ‘sighing like furnace’ with ‘woeful ballad.’ Waller
has updated the lovers reference, drawing from the film Dilwale
Dulhania Le Jayenge (The big hearted will take away the bride)
often referred to by its initials ‘ddlj’. Released in 1995 it is one
of the most successful Indian films of all-time, as it crosses continents and generations. It also crosses history connecting marriage
to Shakespeare’s day, where most marriages were arranged for
the benefit of extended family networks: to forge alliances and
to transfer property. In ddlj and in Waller’s painting, the lovers bridge the apparent gap between the importance of family
[4]
[5]
values and parental consent, and the need to follow one’s heart and
achieve a love marriage.
¶ The soldier ‘jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel’ has
dishearteningly become a child soldier: a child forced to grow up
too quickly, a soldier trained in violence, the painting reveals the
child-like confusion and naivety in the boy’s face as he waits for
his next orders. The United Nations currently estimates that there
are 25 countries that use child soldiers, numbering approximately
250,000 children. Waller’s painting makes it all too clear that this
is a modern day tragedy and travesty of human rights. We can
only wish for better for this young man with all his lost innocence
and potential.
¶ The ‘justice’ who ‘plays his part’ is encompassed in a rendering of famous cricket umpire Dickie Bird, as he raises his hand
in judgement to dismiss a batsman. He could just as easily be a
bishop blessing his congregation with this gesture and perhaps
this is the point: the justice is played in many ways within our
modern world, but perhaps always with the formality of ‘eyes
severe’. These are formal roles and expectations, which are fulfilled in line with society’s own pre-occupations and rules.
¶ Waller has transformed the sixth age from Shakespeare’s male
‘lean and slippered pantaloon’ into a homeless woman suffering
hardship in falling snow. However, both have recognised that this
age is often invisible to wider society, the pantaloon an ageing fool
and the crone old and in poverty. Waller’s elderly woman doesn’t
have the luxury of slippers or the right to a comfortable old age.
Instead she is powerless and desperately bargains on her sign for
help: ‘pleas help me Im POOR And SICK I WILL VOTe FOR YOU THANK
YOU [sic]’
human stages of misery. Yet the image Waller presents in the final
Age appears to us a celebration of the human circular experience.
It seems to be one of light and hope and ultimately finishes with a
sense of freedom from expectation.
¶ The seventh Age shows a dying man on oxygen. While his
features are pale and difficult to distinguish, he wears a bright
yellow T-shirt that seems to glow free of society’s expectations and
stress. He may be dying but he is also free to consider his life and
to enjoy this present moment. In the moment we see, he holds a
baby with strength, his hands safely enfolding him. It seems to
us that he is considering the circularity and marvels of life, the
baby mirroring this too in open-mouthed wonder. There is calm
in knowing that life goes on and that the story continues.
¶ The strength of Shakespeare’s storyline lies in this circularity.
Stories, while they move forward and have direction, do not go in
straight lines; they go round in circles, encouraging us to explore
more than is immediately presented. This circularity is seen not
merely in the presence of the new baby, but in the way the child is
clutched to the breast, in the nature of the grasp of the hand. As
life appears to be coming to an end the full richness of being alive
becomes clear. There is a sense of continuation here; that life goes
on in all its wonder and ends with the ultimate human aspiration
– that of freedom.
n
¶ This is her final plea and a last hope of improving her life, yet
the viewer knows that she is invisible and that the government will
not see the sign. In January 2016, Age uk estimated that 42,000
older people were unofficially homeless in England and Wales, a
phenomenal number, and yet only an estimate because of their
continued invisibility. Waller’s painting asks us to read the homeless
lady’s sign, which is strategically difficult to see; we might strain to
read it, but read it we should, both within and without the painting.
¶ So far, many of the Ages detail the roles of ‘the players’ on
the world’s stage and these encompass societal expectations, stress
and suffering. The paintings appear faithful to Jaques’ despondent
[6]
[7]
connection or mature love. Jaques himself can only connect with
others through disconnection; for him, even mind and body are
estranged, each humiliating the other in his litany of human folly.
A Cast of Eternal Archetypes
from the Theatre of
Our Inner World
by
Ruth Calland
F
or the Elizabethans, psyche and soma were indivisible,
and mental health relied on maintaining a proper
balance of the four ‘humors’ in the body: phlegm, yellow
and black bile, and blood. A melancholy or depressive
state was a symptom of too much black bile in the blood, possibly
caused by an antihuman presence such as spirits. When Jaques
delineates the seven ages of man in As You Like It, his famous
melancholy is much in evidence.
¶ I take a contemporary Jungian perspective and am going to
look at the seven characters that Jaques describes, not in a
developmental way, one following another chronologically, but
as archetypal subpersonalities that are present from birth, and
eternal in the human psyche. Each of us will experience these
archetypes differently, according to the progress of our lives and
the emergence of our own nature.
¶ I propose that at every stage of our lives, from infancy to
old age, we are each able to locate all seven of them in our
internal world. As Jonathan Waller’s radical revisioning of the
figures suggests, these internal ‘actors’ may be both male and
female. These internal figures each have certain functions,
and how they relate to each other like the four humors is of crucial
importance. Waller’s vision is warm and empathic, and portrays
several of the figures in relationships rather than isolation, thus
emphasising the importance of human connectedness, both
externally and internally.
R u t h C a l l a n d is a painter,
performance artist and Jungian
psychotherapist, based in London.
She is training as a Jungian analyst
at the British Psychotherapy
Foundation.
¶ The figures that appear in the speech can be seen as representations of the figures that inhabit his inner world, and are thus all
disconnected too: from themselves, from others, and from each
other. They are laughable because they have no selfawareness,
and no redeeming features. Jaques’s bile, his ‘black humor’ gives
forth a thrillingly negative antidote to any idealised images of
human life. In the context of a play about lovers, this tempers the
positive and makes it more real. When we think about human
archetypes, we need to hold in mind their negative and positive
poles, and the tension between those two.
¶ We can take the seven ages as described by Jaques as the negative and disconnected version of what we may also see as positive
and connected internal functions. Jaques’s analysis of human life
from cradle to grave is about the progress of decay, disconnection,
loss and entropy. This seems to me to be as important a function
as the positive progress principle, embodied in relationship, love,
connectedness of all kinds, and creativity. To live and to grow, we
need both: all change necessitates loss, and vice versa.
¶ Experience of ourselves and the world is embodied: we operate
within a crisscrossing interplay between psyche and soma, mind
and body, which extends both inwards towards the timeless,
shared collective unconscious, and outwards towards our contemporary external world. We create ourselves in this intersectional
space, each person a fertile receptacle for new productions of old
plays, drawing on the eternal archetypes within us. Our mind (or
body-mind) is our theatre, within which all else will continually
appear and disappear.
¶ Jaques speaks of humanity with repugnance, whilst relishing
the grotesque imagery that he so lovingly and sneeringly creates.
What are little boys made of ? Well, slugs and snails of course.
There are no little girls or women in the speech: the feminine is
cast in two supporting roles only, and even then as part-objects.
Firstly the arms of a nurse, and secondly the beloved is even further
reduced – to an eyebrow! – to diminish any prospect of genuine
¶ The archetype of the Infant represents the future, the possibility
of rebirth, innocence, and potential. It also represents vulnerability
and dependency. At times of change, loss or uncertainty, we may
be plunged into a state of helplessness and unknowing. Our task
then is to negotiate our hopes, fears and anxieties, until we can
find our feet in a new landscape. ‘Mewling and puking’ are an
important part of this process: mewling is the ability to show our
vulnerability, and to elicit help from others when we are at our
most needy; puking is the result of a healthy ability to distinguish
what is good for us from what is not, the right time to take things
[8]
[9]
in and when to reject – essential skills when we are vulnerable. We
need the ‘holding arms’ of other people, but these functions lead
towards the emergence of the border between self and other, and
the recognition of others as subjects with their own needs.
¶ The archetype of the Student contains both an eager thirst for
knowledge at one pole, and as Jaques reminds us, a reluctance at
the other. To learn anything new is to also learn something new
about the self, and for this reason we cling to what we already
know or to what feels safe. The ego often impedes the unfolding
from within of the true self throughout life which Jung termed
individuation because what we consciously ‘know’ or think or
wish, about who we are and what is right for us, may actually be
in conflict with the deeper self. However, this snail-like reluctance
is an indicator of the huge impact of genuine engagement with
the inner self. Consciousness is a fort against the unknown depths
that swirl within us, allowing us to know what it is that we know,
and reflect upon it. These unknown depths within are as strange
and frightening to us as the external world can be. Encountering
and negotiating both the internal and external worlds allows the
emergence of our true self throughout life.
¶ An image of a Lover is only one half of a story: there can be no
lover without a beloved. The Lover function governs all relationships, not just romantic or heterosexual ones. In our internal world
too, our subpersonalities may interrelate well or badly. Jaques is
scathing in his commentary on love: the lover is consumed rather
than replenished or lifted up by love, and prone to objectification and fetishisation of the beloved’s particulars. Such narcissism
would seem to defend against love but why? In the comingling of
two lovers, two subjectivities, there is also a fight for supremacy,
which can feel like a battle to the death. Jung used the metaphorical approach of alchemy to understand this ‘union of opposites’,
where there must be a struggle between two substances, leading
to decomposition, in order to create a new state that contains
and transcends them both. Obsession with someone who doesn’t
return our feelings is a painful but convenient way to avoid being
drowned in the waves of mutual love.
¶ This defence against annihilation is part of the armoury of the
Soldier within us. Soldier keeps us safe, and is adept at coping with
stress and anxiety, whether caused by internal conflicts or external
ones. Psychologists define our defences as the five F’s: Fight: us-
[10]
ing aggression to dominate, and feel superior; Flight: fleeing into
OCD behaviours, anxiety, perfectionism, and addictions; Freeze:
camouflaging through dissociation, paralysis and isolation; Fawn:
submission or surrender; and Flop: becoming so passive and inert
as to be a liability. Knowing when to use which of these defences
is crucial, but we tend to rely on one or two that we find easiest,
and thus our Soldier can often interfere with the functioning of the
other archetypes. Jaques depicts his Soldier as ‘quick in quarrel,’his
prideful self-importance leading him into danger rather than out
of it. Why would this be? ‘Seeking the bubble reputation’ reveals
a need for the approval of others, both an Infant and Loverrelated
intention that would perhaps be quite shameful to Jaques, who
likes to set himself apart. His Soldier therefore often leads him to
be at odds with others, seeking a feeling of superiority over others
rather than facing his need of them.
¶ The role of the Justice function is to arrive at creative solutions
and balanced decisions, based on insightful perceptions. This
results from a mature grasp of one’s own authority. The Justice
as painted by Jaques is associated with the capon, a fattened
rooster, castrated to improve the taste of its flesh. This vision of
total humiliation hints at the self-disgust behind Jaques’ contempt
for others, and the impossibility for him of finding self-respect,
true agency, or genuine creativity. His Justice speaks in clichés,
and with ‘eyes severe’ lacks the warmth of empathy, that is the
secondary fruit of self-acceptance and genuine self-regard. As
the nascent Justice function is present in an infant, what kind of
environment might nurture it? We learn from the work of Jungian
analyst Jean Knox that a baby who is attuned to, and treated as
if he/she has a sense of agency, will develop one. If all goes well
then self-attunement can develop, but a child who is not ‘seen’
must step outside themselves, and then all of the judging function
is turned back onto the self, and grows into self-attack, which may
be disguised as contempt for others.
¶ Who’d be a Pantaloon?! Baggy tights where your muscly calves
used to be, and a silly voice. How to deal with such indignities?
The solution found by many, is to send yourself up before anyone
else can do it. Many serious actors seem to find an urgent need to
lampoon themselves in comic roles at a certain age, possibly as a way
to take ownership of the sense of being ridiculous and vulnerable
that we can all feel, when we come up against our mortality or
our fallibility. The archetypal psychologist James Hillman spoke
[11]
about arriving at this immense freedom to extend one’s range,
having honed our vision, and taken it seriously to the point where
we no longer need to. The chance to reinvent ourselves, and a
sense of having nothing to lose, is always available however, if we
can take it. Thus Student and Pantaloon, also known as Puer and
Senex, are linked. If we take ourselves too seriously, we become
inflexible, and will be seen (and see ourselves) always in terms of
what we have lost. Better to be slippery, than slipper’d.
P L A TE S
¶ And so to Oblivion. How can a sense of Oblivion be of functional
use to our development throughout life? How can being somehow
‘sans everything’ be of value, be helpful to us? In particular, how
can we think about ourselves in relationship to the world, without
ourselves? But then, if we can’t imagine the world without us in
it, how can we know what our existence means? At some point a
child will learn that there was a time before he/she existed, and
at about this time too will have to learn to cope with being left out
sometimes, and not part of things. This can be very painful, even
in adult life, but a host of benefits arise from it: not having to be
omnipresent, responsible for everything; appreciating the value to
us of relationships between others; and finding that there can be
continuity of relationship even when we aren’t present. And if we
can see clearly how things are without us, then we may be more
able to find our right place and contribution.
These plates reproduce
Jonathan Waller’s drawings in his series
The Seven Ages of Man
¶ Each of these seven functions may take on special significance
as it comes into alignment with each chronological age, as key
life stages unlock the energy of these archetypes within us.
Jaques’s chosen list of seven is not exhaustive, but offers a good
mix of archetypally based sub-personalities, which we can use to
imagine that ‘the internal world’s a stage’ upon which our inner
figures take their place and interact. Each of us will picture the
characters differently in our minds: Infant, Student, Lover, Soldier,
Justice, Pantaloon and Oblivion. How we do so will be telling, and
offer us a starting point to understanding our own unique and
individual nature.
III
Third Age
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The originals are rendered in charcoal,
gouache and soft pastel on paper
each measuring 100 x 50 cms
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I
First Age
II
Second Age
IV
Fourth Age
V
Fifth Age
VI
Sixth Age
VII
Seventh Age
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[12]
Plate I
Plate II
Plate III
Plate IV
Plate V
Plate VI
CURRICULUM VITAE
of the artist
Jonathan Waller
Born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1956
Education
Selected Solo Exhibitions
1979–80 Nene College, Northampton
1980–83 Coventry (Lanchester)
Polytechnic
1984–85 Chelsea School of Art
1986–88 Paton Gallery, London
1990 Flowers East, London
1992 River Bank, Flowers East, London
1993 Flowers East, London
1994 Paintings (1986–93) Doncaster
Museum & Art Gallery
1994 Gouaches
Angela Flowers Gallery, London
1997 Birth, New End Gallery, London
1998 Birth, Axiom Centre for the Arts
Cheltenham
1998 Paintings & Drawings (1994–98)
New End Gallery, London
2003 Box Assemblages
Lanchester Gallery, Coventry
2005 Jonathan Waller’s True Adventures
National Maritime Museum Cornwall
Falmouth
2006 Jonathan Waller’s True Adventures
Arlington Gallery, London
2013 A Gallery of Condemned Men
The Lewis Gallery, Rugby, touring
Selected Awards
1980 Northampton County Council
Travelling Scholarship
1984 First prize, Midland View 3
Nottingham
1985–86 Junior Painting Fellowship
Cardiff
1988 Mark Rothko Memorial Trust:
Travelling Scholarship to USA
1990 British Council Grant:
Working Visit to New York
1996–2013 Coventry University
Research Awards
Selected Group Exhibitions
1983 Sheffield Open, Mappin Art Gallery
Sheffield
1984 New Contemporaries, ICA, London
Midland View 3, Midland Group Arts
Centre, Nottingham and touring
Gallery, Greatstone, Kent
2008 Jerwood Drawing Prize 2008
Jerwood Space, London & tour
A Gothic Story, Shoreditch Town Hall
Basement, London
2008 Drawing Breath, Lugar Do Desenho
– Fundacao Julio Resende, Gondomar
Porto, Portugal
2010 An Orchestra of Strings, The Crypt
St Pancras Parish Church, London
2010 400 Women, Shoreditch Town Hall
Basement, London, touring
2011 Unearthed, Warton House, London
Rifettorio Project (Fioravante Sansoni’s
Last Supper), Rifettorio Museum
Pescia, Italy
2014 The Artist’s Folio as a Site of
Enquiry, Cartwright Hall Gallery
Bradford
2014 Not Yet Dead Nearly
Salthouse Church, Salthouse, Norfolk
touring
Plate VII
Selected Public Collection
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Tate Gallery, London
Doncaster Museum & Art Gallery
(Contemporary Art Society)
Department of Environment
London Underground
British Airport Authority
Bradford Museums
Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry
Selected Commissions
1994 London Underground, poster for
Kew Gardens
1995 British Airport Authority
two paintings for Terminal 3
Heathrow Airport
2012 Portrait of the Cricketer
Tom Cartwright
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